Green Lantern: The Animated Series – Fear Itself Review

The hunt for food adds a bit more background to one of the other looming threats the Green Lanterns will have to face.

What They Say:
Fear Itself

The Review:Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way things played out in the previous episode in dealing with Atrocitus, Green Lantern needs a bit of a down episode to focus on the characters and something a little lighter, at least for a part of it. With what was learned about everyone before and the Red Lanterns themselves, moving away from it for a bit is a good thing. This episode starts off with a silly kind of idea but one that does get covered from time to time – food. With Hal and Kilowog having gotten to the end of their stores, they have to set out onto a nearby properly classed worldi n an effort to find something that they can eat and survive on. And considering the differences in what they eat, it may not be a world where there both can find something.

The two end up in different situations though they do connect back to each other, all while Razer hangs out on the ship. Kilowog comes across a young woman of a species similar to his and hits it off pretty well since he saves her from an oversized jellyfish kind of creature that was attacking her. The village sees him as a hero for this and a new protector to help deal with the creatures. He’s not keen on this but there are draws to it, at least in the short term, that has him taking up the mantle for a bit. Naturally, Hal ends up elsewhere and is the one that befriends the creatures, naming on Norman so he can attempt to have some sort of conversation with it and befriend it.

Where the good, larger storyline material comes with this episode is in the discovery of the yellow crystals that Hal comes across and that are a part of the village where Kilowog is. It’s all Yellow Lantern material that causes fear and it slowly but surely pushes Kilowog over the edge and to become even more warlike than he usually comes across. The resulting fight is about what you’d expect but it has some fun bits to it as it pits Hal against Kilowog again and it’s a Kilowog without anything really holding him back, heightened by fear. It’s not the first and won’t be the last time we see these two fight but it’s one that’s pretty well done and has a good sense of fun and fear about it, especially as the other two races get into it.

In Summary:
Though it doesn’t answer any questions when it comes to the yellow crystal, it shows a bit more of what it’s capable of and how it affects a variety of creatures, from intense to nothing at all. The core idea of the show in the first half isn’t bad but it just kind of works as the overall setup but takes a bit of time before you really feel it. I do like the banter between Kilowog and Hal and how they handle things but it’s nothing that really stands out. The show also does some fun with Razer as it works with a problem he’s coping with when it comes to his oath and recharging his battery and it’s interesting to see Aya try and come up with a solution, though there really can’t be one when you get down to ti. There are good things in the episode but as a whole it feels like it’s hitting too many stories ideas seen so many times over the decades in science fiction.

Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.